ITV was last night urged to pull the plug on a dramatisation of serial killer Fred West’s life – by the loved ones of a suspected North victim.

Furious relatives of Mary Bastholm, strongly thought to have ben West’s first victim in 1968, reacted with horror to the broadcaster’s plans.

Mary, then a 15-year-old waitress, has never been seen since being spotted in West’s car after setting off to meet her boyfriend.

Mary, born and bred in South Shields in South Tyneside, had moved to Gloucester with her family, and worked at the town’s Pop In cafe where West was a customer and carried out repairs.

He was charged with the murders of 12 girls. Most were found in his cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.

West committed suicide in prison on New Years Day 1995 before he could stand trial.

After that Mary’s relatives on Tyneside called on his partner Rose, 56, who is serving life for 10 murders, and is in Low Newton women’s prison in Brasside, County Durham, to help find Mary’s body, but to no avail.

Now they have hit out at TV bosses for cashing in on evil as the killer’s story is told in a new drama heading for our screens.

The wife of Mary’s cousin Harry, Patricia Bastholm, said from her South Shields home: “The telly bosses do what ever they want – we’re only the little people and they don’t listen to families of the victims.

“I think this will be terrible for relatives who have gone through so much after the killings. “It’s a money making thing, they don’t make programmes to make a loss. Why should they make money out of other people’s grief? It is terrible.”

Patricia’s comments echo those of Anne Marie Davis, 46, West’s daughter from his first marriage, who broke her 10-year silence to accuse producers of cashing in on the grotesque crimes.

Anne, whose mum and two half-sisters were killed by West and was herself abused by her twisted dad before she fled home at 15, said: “I felt physically sick when I heard about the plans to turn the tragic events which devastated so may people’s lives into a TV drama.”

Great-grandmother Patricia, 69, added: “I remember the day Harry, me and the kids were sitting watching the news and it said that a young girl had gone missing. They said she was called Mary Bastholm and Harry said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing because Mary was his cousin.

“Harry would talk about Mary as they used to play out together in the fields in South Shields when they were young. He died of a heart attack 26 years ago so, of course, he didn’t get to know about the possible link with Fred West.

“But I know he will be turning in his grave knowing that Fred West’s story is being made into a drama for TV bosses to make money off.”

The retired domestic added: “I don’t know if Mary will be mentioned in it but for those other families it will be awful. I often think of Mary as the forgotten one. I know there needs to be lots of money spent to find a body but we still don’t know what exactly happened to her.

“This drama will bring back so many bad memories for so many people.”

ITV’s three hour drama Appropriate Adult focuses on the period between the Wests’ arrests in 1994 and his suicide in jail in 1995, as he awaited trial. The Wire star Dominic West will play the killer builder while Monica Dolan has been cast as Rose.

ITV executive producer Jeff Pope defended the programme and said: “Our intention is to produce a sober and thought-provoking drama based on a true story.”

ITV added: “It is certainly not our wish to cause distress to the families of the West’s victims, or their children, and Appropriate Adult does not contain any re-creation of the actual crimes themselves.”

The programme will focus on West’s relationship with voluntary worker Janet Leach who was brought in to interviews with the killer as an appropriate adult by police concerned over his low intellect.